Have heard from unimpeachable source that performance is a non-issue, and that employment issues are directly centered around my ethnicity. Aka, while the department thinks I rock, the administration is basically pulling a Dallas.

Have found a couple VERY interesting potential jobs locally, one of which would be right up my alley and kick butt; will be applying shortly.

The link, of course, is AP (and therefore shit), so if you don’t know the background, here’s the deal: Zelaya was in deep trouble for having screwed with the Constitution, attempting to pull a Chavez, and the Honduran Supreme Court was getting ready to deliver a smackdown when Zelaya decided to try to do things the old way.

AKA, if you can’t manipulate the law, cow your political opponents with the threat of mass-violence via mobs of useful idiots like Ms. Gaitan (see article). In this case, the Honduran military wasn’t having it.

Central and South American politics gets narsty, it’s true. Because of the cronyism inherent to politics, the pure liberals (classical liberals) never quite seem to have a solution that really helps the poor, and the leftist and so-called “nationalist” solutions simply seem to spread the misery around. I don’t know what balance or prescription would work, but Zelaya isn’t it. He’s jsut another representative of old-school political thuggery that has continually failed to deliver for about a century and a half now.

Oh. For those of you new to the problem (aka, Central and South America’s politics are f’d up), an EXCELLENT, rather leftist (but openly so, and therefore intellectually honest) basic history I’d recommend is Born in Blood and Fire. It’s well-written, reads quickly, and presents the basics in a way that’s easily accessible, even as a bathroom book. It’s got solid currency as a basic freshman-level textbook, and I strongly recommend it.

UPDATE. Apparently Obama’s siding with Chavez on this one (no surprise, since it’s Chavez who printed the illegal ballets). Apparently it’s easier for a Chicago Democrat to sympathize with a left-wing mobocratic caudillo than with a bunch of grunts, legislators, and supreme-court types concerned about preserving the rule of law. Shameful. BUT! Apparently it’s all words, b/c SecState Clinton says we’re not considering dropping aid, either. Hypocrisy, or Rope-A-Dope for the sake of the rubes?

Apparently, Jerry Brown has an edge on Gavin Newsom for the governor’s race.

I’m all over that. I don’t agree with Brown on a single damned policy prescription (except “dress well, dummy”), but he’s an honest liberal, rather than what the folks over at Winds of Change call a “skybox liberal,” or as my twin puts it, a “socialist of convenience.” I like the guy. Newsom’s hypocrisy and flat-out cold-bloodedness, otoh, has been legendary.

PopSci has a newer article on this, which is a bit of an update. Some folks are going to use sandstone.

That’s GOOD. Stone is a crappy insulator, which means it picks up lots of heat from the outside, but also keeps really cool in the shade. Seriously, take a stone (not brick) lawn tile, and move it back and forth from sun to shade.

Yeah, you can say, “duh, obviously fame doesn’t bring happiness.” One look at the living freakshow of soulless desperation called “Madonna” (and, seriously: Madonna only wishes that the world will give a tenth as much of a damn when she kicks off as they do about losing Michael Jackson) would clue you in there.

But they spell it out in really cool terms, and there’s cute pictures of a rat and kitten eating cupcakes, too. Mmmm, cupcakes.

It’s a week after 2nd-round interviews. Had been assured of a response at the end of last week — am now told that it may be another two weeks before they’ve got one.

Depressing. Am going to start updating the resume, as that leaves very little time to interview if this all goes sideways (and having been unofficially warned from the get-go that part of this involves whether I can overcome the diversity factor, I have to take that as a very real possibility).